Disability campaigner 'grateful' after Herefordshire Council drops kerbs after four-year campaign

ITV News Central's Andy Bevan reports on the 16 pairs of drop kerbs soon to be installed in Hereford

A wheelchair user and disability campaigner has secured victory after a four-year long campaign to get drop kerbs installed on some of Hereford's busiest roads.

Cameron Wood's fight for dropped kerbs has been featured on our programme several times.

In January, the disability rights campaigner showed us parts of his regular journey, where often he had to use his wheelchair on the road, due to a lack of drop kerbs on pavements.

Speaking to ITV Central at the time he said: "It's an accident waiting to happen, so if Herefordshire council do not act now, somebody's either going to get killed or injured".

Herefordshire Council has now started a month-long programme of works to retro-fit the kerbs on Plough Lane and Harrow Road in the city.

Over the next few weeks, 16 pairs of drop kerbs are being installed along the roads highlighted in our news report.

The 26-year old said: "This was never about me as an individual, this was always about the disabled community here in Herefordshire, so i acted for them by saying to Herefordshire Council, "This is an issue, so you need to come and do something about it"".

Cllr John Harrington from Herefordshire Council said: "The instinctive thing is to say sorry mate, we can't help you.

"This is a historic thing, we've got to go back and try and fund, we haven't got the money.

"But actually listening to him and seeing the issues that he has and how much of a significant impact it has on him, we said we've got to do something and so we were able to find some funding and i want to thank our officers for being able to do that".

Herefordshire Council have not revealed the full cost of the installations.

However, the campaigning by Cameron has led to the council rethinking other roads in the county which were built before access for all was a consideration.

Cllr Harrington said that the council are now reviewing the entire city, as well as surrounding market towns:

"We're actually reviewing the entire city and some market towns and we've got a bit of a programme where we're putting as much money as we can aside so we can go back and deal with some historic issues".

Mr Wood said: "Not every council would have listened to somebody like me when they've come and raised an issue like this.

"So i am incredibly grateful for Herefordshire council and they've done everything they possibly can to make sure it's done in the quickest possible time so that it's no longer an accident waiting to happen".